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Basically another case of the litigation state trying to blame others rather than take responsibility for their own actions.

In this case there might be some merit to suing the track for not putting the wall back to where it was supposed to be, assuming that the wall's location made the accident significantly worse. Moving a wall 10 feet back probably wouldn't have helped in such a high speed crash.

But I don't for one minute buy this bullshit about Porsche making a defective car because the average person can't drive it. If it is truly the case that the car is dangerous to operate without training then let make a High Performance Driver's license. Its not Porsche fault this guy made a driving mistake and died.

Furthermore if your 200 mph supercar is having a handling problem it might be a good idea to have it looked at before you go risk your life driving it at high speed on a race track.

And beyond all that I don't believe in wrongful death lawsuits. Suing someone for millions of dollars is not going to bring your loved one back from the dead. If someone was truly responsible for someone else's death they should go to jail. If it doesn't warrant them going to jail then that falls under the 'shit happens' department.

What would you do?

I've flagged the corner many times and almost always people take the road... With rare exception, those people ended up in the trees. Based on that, I would go straight in to the sand. You?

So... what do you do when you're in New South Whales with a 5speed Hyundai Getz, a full tank of gas, and nothing better to do? You visit the most famous racetrack in Australia of course!

For those of you that don't know (I didn't), Mount Panorama is a track located in Bathurst, NSW and hosts the Bathurst 1000: the year's largest V8 supercar race. It's Australia's biggest rivalry... Ford v Holden. The track is actually a public road for 99% of the year but it could fool anyone. The track is a SERIOUS road course and not built like your everday country road. It has painted barriers along the whole thing with the occasional private entrance or vineyard entrance squeezed between them.

From the highest point on the course to the lowest, it's 174 meters. The gradations are REDICULOUSLY steep because it's literally built into the side of a mountain. It's a 6.2km (3.85mi) course that, despite it's extreme elevation changes, allows cars to fly 3 across doing nearly 200mph. I have never seen anything quite like some of the sections of this course. From the diagram, I expected a rather tame course but in actuality... well... last year, out of 46 starting cars, 4 came out unscratched.

Anyways, I headed out from Sydney with my new friend Chris in my new hotrod around 9am. It only took us about 2 hours to get to this place and the road we drove took us through the blue mountains which was quite a drive in itself.



As we arrived onto the completely empty starting grid, we were greeted by the high pitched wine of two sport bikes, a Gixxer and a CBR doing wheelies down the front straight at like 80mph... so much for local road speed limits. They went too fast for me to catch a shot of them, but the start grid alone was trippy enough.



It's a track. It looks and feels like a track... but it's an open road. Quite a weird feeling to be standing on the "front straight" without a headset on. Anyways, I tore off letting off a thunderous SCREEEEEEEEECH of the front tires as I plowed forwards at 6000rpms. Ok... so maybe it was more like an "erp" as I lurched forward in the 60hp eggmobile while pegging the revlimiter, but it was still fun! Stopping halfway up the mountain, Chris told me that the cars were hitting 260kph at this very point while my rental was struggling up the hill at the revlimiter in 2nd.



Up at the top, you can see the entire town of Bathurst below and I can't even imagine how far the roar travels on raceday.



Now, the easy part of the track is over. No more runoffs or nice straightaways. The track is fairly fast overall, but look at this droppoff...



After this, the course turns into a squigly maze with walls on either side. The road bends off to the right very quickly after this peak and Chris told me, lots of shit goes down at this corner. Seemed like the corkscrew at Laguna but it only gets worse after this. It was so narrow that I was nervous about stopping anywhere to take pics. I thought I would endanger the car. The hill coming down was so steep and it had no runoff at all. It's SERIOUSLY steep and narrow... and very dangerous imo. I guess why that's why people like it. It's exciting.

The coolest thing I saw there besides... oh the sylvias, skylines, late 90s RX-7s (DROOOOOOOL), V8 Fords etc... was this:



Google it. Holden Torana SLR 5000. Original everything. Bling.

Either way, quite a cool day of exploring. Thought you guys n gals might like to see pics of this rather than pics of a boring old rock

Oh, PS.. I'm going to see about buying something.

It's probably a dream, but who knows. They might offer me a job to move out here. Either way, at least I'll get a test drive out of it.

VIDEO TO COME....

Quote:Chicago, Ill. – 7/9/2006
CART champions in '99 and Indy 500 winners in '00, Montoya and old boss Chip Ganassi will join forces again - this time to race in NASCAR! (LAT Photo)
Chip Ganassi and Juan Montoya will be reunited in 2007 but it won't be in open wheel racing.

In one of the most shocking career changes in recent memory, Montoya is leaving Formula 1 to drive for Ganassi in NASCAR's Nextel Cup series.

I know a bunch of people are going to Hyperfest, but is anyone around who wants to meet up and grab a few drinks? Drop a line here, IM me or hit the cellularrrr.

Well, as sad as it is for me to say this, I think I'm going to try and withdraw from the money pit that is "road racing". I've reached the point where I'm far from receiving the satisfaction that merits the amount of money and time I spend trying to get my car on track. It simply isn't worth it to me anymore, and I'd rather rid myself of the financial stress and "invest" my money doing other things that I enjoy in life, including saving some of my income for a change. So in a month, I'm going to sell my truck (at a loss - I know), trailer, and possibly the car.

J, who is depressed of the decision, but knows it is an essential one for my future mental well-being.

MM,

I'm looking for someone to take my spot tomororw, Friday, from 9:30am~5pm, to help with setup of Hyperfest. I just had a nasy failure with my car that is going to require a good day's work to fix or else I won't be driving Saturday and Sunday.

If you want my spot please call me now, I don't care what time it is. 540-421-0200.

You'd have to be at Summit Point at 9:30-10:00am.

And I believe that it's possibly double worker credits.

Thanks,
Peter


p.s. does anyone know Lindsay (Dave's GF) cell phone #? Or a way to get Dave to answer his cell phone ;-) ?

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I know there's only a few of you on here, but I'd like some feedback on this setup for the RAC. Almost no-one drives this car, I think because it's a bitch to drive, but it seems like it has a lot of potential. I've worked on this set for many hours and it's fairly soft and easier to drive IMHO, but I'm also able to get within a couple seconds of WR's on some tracks.

What I'm THINKING about is starting a league that races only this car. Because it's fast, light, and closed wheel allowing for some contact and curb hopping without severe damage. And becasue I'd rather just have some fun races rather than dick around with developing different "perfect" setups for each track, each driver would use the same setup, allowing for only a few changes. Like tire pressure, toe, steereing lock (to account for controller differences), and brake force. The things you could normally change on a "spec" car.

So if you've got some time to kill, take this car out and test it on some of your favorite tracks (especially if you do backwards ones, I haven't tried them). I've done most of the popular ones and taken into consideration a lot of other setups, so far I find it pretty fun/fast to drive at any track. And it's designed to last for at least 5 laps. My only tip would be to put an extra 2lbs of pressure in the tires if you want to run for 10 laps or run some of the longer tracks. You still have to be smooth with it, and it's a challenging car to drive, but tell me what you think.

I quit smoking about 5 mintues ago. lol and i'm for real this time. After hearing some news... while having my last smoke... I realize that at my age, i'm not super man, never was, should never have thought i was... and shit will just come out and kick you in the balls.

I'm going to be losing sleep... i programed myself in college to smoke one right before bed... I'll be moody and a real pain in the ass for a while. Live with it, go with the flow, slap me if i'm out of hand... do not feed me alcohol... since thats what got me into smoking and please dont let me smoke... dont offer... yell at me if i try to get my hands on one... i need to quit for real... not just inbetween smokes.

Its going to make this weekend a kick in the pants. for all those working early on friday... keep me away from the smokers please. for all those racing... please bare with an even more hot headed tech inspector. oh and you might want to tell your class reps/leaders... "the tech inspector just quit smoking... becareful." I'm going to be basically detoxing all weekend... its going to suck... i'm bringing a bottle of advil for the headaches i know i'm going to get. oh and i'd keep all bull horns away from me too...

on a side note, who wants to ride to woodbridge by 7am tomorrow morning (that has their M) and ride with me to summit... i'm going to need something to get my blood flowing... i think i need to be on the Yamaha patch to get past the smoking.